


grime & punishment

by mangemouth



Category: Gintama
Genre: Gen, Joui War, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-02
Updated: 2013-07-02
Packaged: 2017-12-16 21:04:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/866587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mangemouth/pseuds/mangemouth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/ginzura/17041.html?mode=reply">day nine</a> of ginzura advent. For <a href="http://antimonial.livejournal.com/profile"><img class="i-ljuser-userhead"/></a><a class="i-ljuser-username" href="http://antimonial.livejournal.com/"></a><b>antimonial</b>, baby, who wanted 'happy war days.'</p>
    </blockquote>





	grime & punishment

**Author's Note:**

> For [day nine](http://community.livejournal.com/ginzura/17041.html?mode=reply) of ginzura advent. For [](http://antimonial.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://antimonial.livejournal.com/)**antimonial** , baby, who wanted 'happy war days.'

The eighth day in the barn, Zura sits straight up, and says in a hollow voice, “I can’t do this anymore.”

“Hrnm?” Gintoki shifts on the hay next to him, trying to find his comfy spot again. No, it’s not even close to sundown, but it’s not like there’s much else _to_ do other than eat, sleep, or fuck Zura. So, if Zura insists on waking him up, and they’re still rationing like good soldiers –

“Why are you touching me? Don’t touch me,” comes Zura’s dead monotone again. “I can’t stand touching you. I can’t stand touching myself.”

“Oi, fine. Then Gin-san is trying to sleep. Can you have your low self-esteem crisis a bit quieter?”

“Seconded,” calls a voice from the loft.

Gintoki leans his head back, shouting up, “Who the fuck asked you, Ibaraki? Go fuck another hole in your hand.”

“We can’t live like this,” Zura is saying, ignoring the profanity now being slung down from the loft. “The snowstorm isn’t going to let up for another week, at least.”

“So what? Are you really complaining about not having to run around in the cold, waving a sword at some nine-eyed freaks? Go walk out into the snow and don’t come back.”

“It’s not that,” the smaller man says. “I just can’t stand any of you.”

“Seconded!”

“ _Shut the fuck up, Ibaraki!_ ”

“I can smell all of you,” Zura continues, his voice still distressingly absent of inflection, “I can smell all of you, all the time, and it makes me want to kill all of you, all the time, just so you’ll stop farting and sweating.”

Gintoki sits up, trying to pretend the killer's intent in that voice hasn’t shaken him. “Wh-what are you, some kind of vengeful pregnant goddess, with a sensitive nose? This is what men smell like, Zura. You’d know if you were one.”

“I can’t live like this,” Zura repeats. He stands up, the extra blanket slipping from his shoulders.

Gintoki feels his blood run cold when Zura turns to stare at him with wide eyes, holding his short sword. “ _I won’t let **any** of us live like this._ ”

-+-+-+-

“Fuck! Shit, shit, _shit!_ Fuck, fuck! Son of a _bitch!_ ” shouts Takasugi.

It’s like music to Gintoki’s ears. “Judging by that dirty mouth, I don’t think he’s clean enough yet, Yasuo,” he drawls happily. “Pour more on him.”

“ _Sakata, you asshole, I’ll fucking - **aaaiiyyeee!**_ ”

“Ah… maybe we should have waited for the water to cool a little,” mumbles Zura, watching a scalded red Takasugi tackle a hysterical Yasuo to the floor. He only frowns when both men end up covered in dirt and hay. “ _Stop screwing around,_ you’re wasting firewood! I won’t be the one to go out and collect more, damnit!”

“Ahaha, all done, Zura!” A fresh-faced Sakamoto gives them both a peace sign, plunking a half-full tub of water down next to the fire.

“It’s not Zura, it’s Katsura.” The dark haired man turns, hands on his hips. “You can’t be done, I just gave you your pot. Did you wash everywhere?”

“What are you, his mother?” Gintoki complains, digging a finger into his nostril. “Are you gonna check behind his ears, too?”

“It’s not his ears I’m worried about,” huffs Zura. “Do you bastards want to end up like Kojima?”

Nobody wants to end up like Kojima. Last month, Kojima had gotten a very particular, very painful infection.

The men assembled around the fire, almost as one, turn around, sticking their hands down their pants and scrubbing.

“I heard it actually rotted off,” mutters Yasuo.

Takasugi snorts derisively. “That little weasel barely had one to begin with.”

“Oi, what’s with this old womens’ gossip? I’m having enough problems reaching my full potential with the cold, I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Wash your hands again after,” reminds Zura. “Ah, should I heat up another pot? Is everyone done?”

“I’m n-not… done…”

“Is he – ”

“Oh _sick,_ what the _hell_ – ”

“ _Tatsuma! That’s not washing!_ ”

“Ahahaha, uh, sorry guys, I forgot what we were doing!”

-+-+-+-

Ibaraki and Zura are voted the steadiest hands, but that doesn’t make any of them feel better about having blades that close to their face. Aside from Sakamoto, of course, who doesn’t have the mental capacity to feel bad about much of anything.

“I wouldn’t believe you’ve been cutting his hair for fifteen minutes if I hadn’t been watching,” gapes Zura, watching Ibaraki try to tackle The Ferocious Fro.

“Pay attention,” Gintoki grits, leaning away from the scissors in Zura’s idle hand. “Zura. Pay attention.”

“I told you he almost took my eye out,” grumbles Takasugi, running his fingers through shorn, uneven hair. The taller man doubts his will look any more symmetrical; they’re samurai, after all, not stylists.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t make Takasugi any less right. A sharp glint of metal flickers near his nose. “ _Pay attention!_ ”

“I am paying attention! Look at that horrible afro, it’s as if it will never give up… in that kind of situation, a beast will always fight back to it’s last breath. It knows it’s life is being threatened.”

Gintoki swerves his neck away from the distracted blades again. “Oi oi oi, it’s my life that’s being threatened, here!”

“Stop complaining! I haven’t hurt any of you yet.”

“ _Yet?_ ”

“Stop moving! I’ll hurt you if you don’t stop moving!”

“What the hell! It sounds like someone is going to get hurt regardless!”

“Ahahaha,” laughs Sakamoto. “Can I get something cool? Hey, Ibaraki-kun! Shave the kanji for ‘dangerous’ onto the back of my head! Ahaha! The girls’re gonna love it!”

“I think I know who’s going to get hurt,” says Takasugi dryly. Gintoki and Zura nod silently in agreement.

-+-+-+-

They’re wrong.

“I said I was sorry,” Zura mumbles.

Gintoki growls, “‘Sorry’ doesn’t grow that chunk of my ear back.”

-+-+-+-

They don’t have enough pots to wash all their clothes at once, so they take group turns stripping down, yanking off cloth that crackles with grime. With no little satisfaction, Gintoki tosses his once-white shirt and pants at Sakamoto’s face (the dust clouds turning the other’s laughter into hacking coughs).

He then returns to his ( _their_ ) previously abandoned pile of hay and blankets, and watches Zura strip with a lazy, pleased eye. “This is all just for you, isn’t it? Hygiene boosts morale, my ass. You’re so full of shit, no wonder your eyes are brown.”

“It _does_ boost morale,” sniffs Zura, like the stuck-up snoot he is. He turns to dump his clothes into the pot, saying over his shoulder, “I don’t see you complaining.”

The view doesn’t leave him much to complain about, honestly. But he does have an appearance to keep up. “Aa? Aa? What’d you say? I couldn’t hear you. I lost an ear today – ”

“I _said_ I was sorry! Are you honestly still complaining about such a trifling wound, after all the battle scars we’ve earned? After _Kojima?_ ”

“Don’t joke about that, oi.” Gintoki opens the blanket-cocoon as the other man returns, and closes it tight around them both. His hands immediately skate down over Zura’s cold skin, pulling the other man close by the small of his back. “Mm. You’re shivering.”

“What an astute observation. I wonder if it is because of the _blizzard._ ”

“It’s because you’re too damn skinny. A samurai should have a bit more meat on his bones. Luckily for you,” he moves his hips below the blankets, making Zura grunt and wiggle irritably, “I’m in the mood to share my meat.”

“That’s disgusting. I decline.”

Ignoring the other’s frosty reception, he slides his hands down over the Zura’s rear, which earns him an icy glare. It thaws when his palms rub up along his back and shoulders, stroking circulation back into the pale skin. He repeats this patient up-and-down path, feeling Zura relaxing inch by inch in his arms.

When the other seems like he’s melted into a puddle of hair – warmed up both in body temperature and to his advances – the white-haired man’s hands scoop lower, sword calluses rubbing heat into the backs of Zura’s thighs. “Hm?” he hums lowly, a prompt and a question.

“…I suppose…” Zura coughs lightly, eyes lidding and gaze averting, “…generating heat is a good idea.”

“Seconded,” says Ibaraki, appearing behind Gintoki. He tugs on the blanket. “Hey, lemme in. I’m freezing.”

“ ** _Fuck off, Ibaraki!_** "

-+-+-+-

By the time they sit down around the fire to eat, they’ve all been stripped, scalped and scalded. Oddly enough, Zura was right – a sentiment Gintoki can and will take to his grave. But he does feel much better; cleaner, healthier, and not as listless. Everyone else seems to be in high spirits, too, jostling each other for bowls and cracking jokes.

The long-haired man seems equally energized, digging into the rice Gintoki’s prepared with vigor. “What’s with this appetite of yours?” he asks loftily, smirking. “Taking that meat comment to heart, aa?”

“Don’t be stupid, why would I take any of the garbage you say to heart?” He shoves a big wad of rice in his mouth. “Iff bof be’hr t’eet wift keen’ads.”

“Talking with your mouth full is impolite.”

“Ahahaha! It’s always more polite to swallow, Zura!”

“It’s not Zura – ”

“ _Shut up, you disease-ridden moron!_ ”

“ – it’s Katsura!” Nevertheless, Zura swallows. “I said, it’s just better to eat with clean hands.”

“Yeah, right. More like,” he digs into his own bowl, finally, “foo f’ont haffa ‘rry abow finscraw’in owwyore vig th’cher.”

“Chew before you speak. It’s very rude.”

“Yeah, ahaha, sometimes a little teeth is okay! Haha! But don’t get carried away, Kintoki!”

“ _My name isn’t –_ ”

“Are you being disgusting? Seppuku yourself already.”

“ _– Kintoki, you goddamn idiot!_ ” Gintoki throws an earthenware cup at Sakamoto’s shit-for-brains head for good measure, and returns to his conversation with Zura. “I said, more like you don’t have worry about things crawlin’ out of your wig to share.”

Zura kicks at the other’s ankle. “Shut up. Don’t spoil my meal when I can finally smell it.”

Suddenly, Yasuo and Sakamoto start laughing. Both men look up, curious, but the joke reveals itself in it’s own time, after a few important seconds.

“ _Ugh_ ,” cringes Zura, slamming his bowl onto his knee. “ _Damnit._ Who did that? People are _eating._ Can’t you control yourselves?”

Gintoki shakes his head. “You did your best, Zura, but there’s some smells a man simply cannot escape.”

“ _Hold it in, damnit!_ I can’t live like this!”  



End file.
